Skiing On-Demand: How the Zoa PL-1 Personal Ski Lift is Redefining the Slopes
Zoa Engineering has launched a new era in skiing with its PL-1 personal, portable ski lift designed to make skiing possibilities limitless and maximise fun on the slopes.
Zoa Engineering has launched a new era in skiing with its PL-1 personal, portable ski lift designed to make skiing possibilities limitless and maximise fun on the slopes.
Motivated by the desire to help people get outdoors and enjoy navigating the slopes for less effort and more fun, this team of innovative individuals have come up with a solution for one of the not-so-glamourous parts of mountain life.
Standing around in queues for extended periods of time and having to trek up and down pistes can result in a sweaty and unenjoyable, cold and uneventful experience – as people end up spending more time trying to get up the mountain than actually getting in some action.
Image: A large crowd of skiers in the queue in front of a ski lift.
With the PL-1 model, Zoa Engineering hopes to solve this issue once and for all. The innovative product allows for increased runs with minimal effort and more fun, thereby also extending enthusiasts’ reach to snowier slopes not serviced by lifts, and reducing queuing times.
Small ski resorts are set to benefit significantly from the product, as they will be able to hire portable ski lifts for visitors to enjoy. In particular, Scandinavian resorts such as Åre, Sweden; The Troll Peninsula, Iceland; and Ylläs, Finland- that have wide terrain but limited vertical height in their slopes- and so rely on spreading their pistes out across the mountain in order to attract as many people as possible.
Image: The Zoa PL-1 model.
The Zoa PL-1 is a patent-pending, powerful tool for backcountry skiing that fits into backpacks and works by operating a para-cord anchor pulley system song enough to propel a skier or snowboarder up a mountain. The product can be used in temperatures as low as -40 °C (–40 °F) and has a number of special features to make it easy to use.
These include:
- A removable handle for easy stowing and less risk of damaging yourself or the Zoa PL-1 in the case of a crash.
- An adjustable throttle to give the user full control over the ride up.
- A steel lanyard allows the user to clip into a harness on long and steep ascents.
Image: An easy, step-by-step guide on how to use the PL-1 ski lift.
The Zoa PL-1 is the market’s first portable and personal rope tow designed for skiers and snowboarders. It is completely electric and aims to mirror electric bikes’ impact on cycling by pioneering a quieter, more sustainable life on the slopes. It comes with a rechargeable, lithium-ion battery which, depending on the weight of the skier or snowboarder with their gear on and the vertical incline of the slope, is equipped to provide enthusiasts with up to 4000 vertical feet per charge. It has been built, tried, and tested by Vancouver, British Columbia, and Canada skiers.
The innovative product has proved incredibly popular so far- the company launched their Kickstarter in 2021, of which followed orders from Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand, US and Canada. They officially launched for full production in October 2023. But how effective actually is their product at expanding our skiing horizons and helping us get more runs and more fun for less effort? Only time will tell, but we’ll be testing our own PL-1 very soon, so stay tuned!
For more details on the PL-1, visit: http://www.zoaeng.com
